How the years are winding down
by x.xOracles.Shadowx.x
Summary: Things have changed, and Hannibal has remained the only constant in Will's life. - Spoilers for "Red Dragon". There is character death, and a blatant disregard for character death. Blend of TV and book content.


**AN: **

**Hello, Fannibals!**

**I wrote this down a couple months ago during the hiatus, and now just seemed like a good time to post it because... Well, why not?**

**This is set after the events of Red Dragon, and presumably after the show. I tried to blend the show and what I know of the book as as thoroughly as I could. I hope you enjoy it. **

**There are spoilers for "Red Dragon" in here! Kind of! Ish! You'll see what I mean.**

**There is character death, and the blatant disregard of character death. That's just how I roll. **

**Dislcaimer: I own nothing. If you're looking for money, you're looking the wrong place. I'm simply expressing my love and appreciation for a world which consists of an intelligent cannibal and an empath played by Hugh Dancy on TV. **

**Enjoy!**

Will Graham was lying in a hospital bed when he realized that he was entirely alone. Molly was gone. Alana was gone. Hannibal was gone. Like everyone else, they'd either been taken from him or they'd left. His life with the FBI had robbed him of the lives he'd had before, during and after Hannibal Lecter.

It wasn't official yet, it wouldn't be until he left the hospital, but Molly was leaving him. Killing Dollarhyde was too much for her. She was taking her son, Will's stepson, and leaving, going to live with her parents on the opposite end of the country. Will didn't blame her; his baggage turned out to be far more than she'd signed on for when she said 'I do'.

Alana was gone. She'd been buried two days previously, two days after she died. Will wasn't able to go so Jack had gone in his stead to the funeral, and he'd been told to leave by Alana's parents. Jack hadn't said anything about it; Bev and Price had told him the details.

Alana's parents blamed Jack for her death; they'd told him that if he'd done his job and the system hadn't failed, Gideon would have stayed behind bars or been caught before Alana died.

They didn't blame Will, oddly enough. They said that Will had done everything he could to protect and save Alana while Jack had done nothing but push harder against the immovable object that was Hannibal Lecter. Even in prison, he refused to follow the trend and cooperate with the FBI unless Will did the talking.

They didn't blame him but Will wished they would, if only so he had a reason to feel as guilty as he did.

Thinking Lecter's name caused an automatic response and Will's eyes drifted to where a 'get well soon' card and a vase of ceramic flowers sat. They'd been delivered the day before, the day after Alana's funeral, and Will hadn't even read the card – he hadn't even touched them, the nurse placed them on the dresser and they hadn't been moved since. – but he knew who'd sent them. It made him laugh even as his life was falling apart around him.

Hannibal Lecter was sending him cards and ceramic flowers from prison.

Jack didn't know he had access to money from within the institution, and Will had no desire to tell him that the cannibalistic serial killer they'd chased for months, who Will would bet was having a grand ol' time making Chilton chase his tail while he tried to get inside Hannibal's head, had sent him a present.

It wasn't an apology. Hannibal Lecter wasn't a man who apologized.

As far as Hannibal knew, everything he'd done since meeting Will had been an attempt to help him make the most of his supposed gift, an attempt to help him grow whether Will wanted to grow or not.

Even though it had resulted in Will being behind bars and on the wrong end of a mental breakdown, to say nothing of the encephalitis which he was still kind of pissed off about, Hannibal truly thought he was helping. After being treated with indifference from everyone in his life except Beverly, Alana, his mom and his dogs, Will appreciated the baser sentiment behind Hannibal's actions even if he didn't particularly agree with them.

The card and the flowers had been sent in the sentiment in which they were commonly intended. Hannibal had heard about Will being attacked – probably via Chilton. He'd have thought it was amusing. Will hoped Hannibal ate him, and then lied by telling himself that he was horrified at the thought. He'd probably give Hannibal indigestion, anyway.– and sent him something to let Will know that someone cared and was thinking of him. Knowing Hannibal, he probably sent flowers to Alana's funeral too.

He'd send roses, Will thought. Pink roses were her favourite, they reminded her of her grandmother, and that was something Hannibal would know. The thought made Will smile to himself.

As he lay back in his hospital bed, Will tried to keep the smile. His life was a mess but he could at least appreciate it for what it was.

His wife was leaving him and taking his stepson away; his best friend and first real love was dead; he'd been stabbed in his living room by the psychopath his soon-to-be ex-wife shot soon after; his boss hadn't come to check on him once since the funeral; and he was getting get-well cards and ceramic flowers from his incarcerated, cannibalistic, serial killer ex-psychiatrist.

Somehow, he didn't think this was what his mother meant when she said he would go places in life.

The only bright spot was that Bev was watching his dogs for him until he got out of the hospital. Jack had been watching them but he'd needed to leave town to go with Bella to her treatments, so Bev had volunteered to bring the dogs to her place. When Jack came back, she told him they could stay with her and Jack hadn't argued.

Will was secretly glad; his dogs knew Bev and they liked her. She always brought them treats, which probably helped.

Bev was one of his only constant visitors, her and Dr. DuMaurier. He saw the doctor every few hours, but Bev had stopped by at least three times a day since he'd been brought in. She'd stopped by shortly before Hannibal's gift arrived the day before, bringing with her a huge get-well card signed by her and everyone else in the lab.

Inside the card there were splotches, and Bev explained that she'd tried to get the dogs to put their paw prints on the inside cover, but all she had to show for the effort was Winston's paw print over the word 'well' and a ruined carpet. Will remembered opening his mouth to apologize and say he'd pay for it, but before the words could come out, she'd thrown a pillow at his face and started telling him about Zeller's latest attempt to ask a woman out.

He looked at their card, large and audacious and the only anchor he had left, and smiled bitterly. With Molly and Alana gone and Hannibal locked up, aside from Bev and his dogs, he was alone.

Being alone had always been a blessing and a curse for him. As a human, he was a social creature, but people were just so unpleasant to be around. The meaningless small talk, the empty words and emptier promises, the endless double talk; it was too much. Being around them was exhausting, always had been, but for a few years, he hadn't wanted to be alone anymore. He could handle it, and he had people to handle it for. When he was honest with himself, his time in the field had brought him more than just nightmares.

It'd brought him Bev, for one, who'd turned out to be the greatest friend he could ask for. It stunned him how much he appreciated her, and how underappreciated she'd been before. He swore that if he lived another year, he'd change that in any way he knew how.

The field had also brought him closer to Alana, who'd always been his friend but whom he'd had feelings for for so long, who'd died in the end because of him, because of his failure. Feelings aside, she'd been the second closest person to him and her death had caused him pain like he'd felt only once before, at the death of his mother. Even Abigail's murder hadn't hurt him as much as Alana's death.

His return to the field had brought him to Hannibal, who'd indirectly led him to Molly, and he'd been happy.

With Hannibal, he'd been cautiously optimistic once he learned that Lecter was genuinely interested in his wellbeing. Will trusted him, and he'd been happy to have someone to talk to who wouldn't think he was a freak for the things he saw and felt. He'd been happy to find a friend in a man like Hannibal Lecter, so happy that he hadn't been able to see how he was being manipulated until things had gone far beyond the point of no return.

Even after, when the truth came out and he, Alana and Bev converted to vegetarianism, he was happy, in a depressed, withdrawn sort of way. He was exonerated, he was getting the treatment he needed, and now they knew who to go after, who the real Chesapeake Ripper was. He promised Alana one night during dinner that he would find Hannibal Lecter, and he would put him behind bars.

He chose not to think of the possible implications, even as a voice that sounded like Hannibal screamed them at him from inside his own head, but soon after that, they began sleeping together.

For a little under three months, things had been good, and then Hannibal started killing again.

He hadn't hidden it; as soon as Jack saw the body, he called Will and told him that Hannibal was back. First one body, then another, and then a third popped up, until there were so many that Will lost count. They were all over Virginia and Maryland. Jack started pushing and as badly as Will wanted to push back, he wanted Hannibal caught more. He drove himself to insomnia trying to see through Hannibal's eyes and Alana spent more time in the morgue with Bev than she did at home.

As it turned out, Hannibal was right. The breaking point came four months down the line. He and Alana had been categorically together for seven months by then, and bodies just kept showing up with organs missing and arranged like something out of the concept art for Disney's _Fantasia_. Will was stretched to the breaking point with Jack pulling harder in every direction, and Alana was doing her best to be both psychiatrist and lover.

Needless to say, the break came and it didn't end well. It was the first time Alana had ever screamed at him, and a week after Hannibal's tenth kill, Will moved his things from Alana's house back to Wolf Trap. He moved out on a Friday, spent Saturday with the dogs, spent Sunday teaching Bev how to fly fish in the middle of March, and he and Alana were back to normal by Monday, all traces of their romance behind them. It was for the best, he thought; he still cared about Alana, but Hannibal had been right. There was too much between them for a relationship to ever work out. He felt like he could focus again.

And then the package came. It was addressed to Will Graham and delivered to the morgue at Quantico by mistake, so Bev brought it over when they had dinner at Wolf Trap with Price, Zeller and Alana one night.

As soon as Will touched it, he knew. He could smell aftershave that cost more than he made in a year. He felt a monogramed pocket square glide over his hands while he cleaned the blood from his fingers.

Will told Alana to call Jack and told Bev, Price and Zeller to start photographing it with every camera and phone in the house. They asked why, and he grabbed a pair of rubber gloves from under the kitchen sink. He opened the box on his coffee table.

Hannibal had learned about the break up and sent Will the heart of his most recent victim in a cooler. It was cut in half and had been laid on ice and wilted rose petals.

Will continued to wonder, even in his hospital bed, how he'd managed to miss that shade of Hannibal's humour. Looking back, the food puns should have tipped him off, but hindsight always was 20/20.

Alana was a sobbing mess and Bev sat in the bathroom being physically sick for the rest of the evening. Will felt like he was burning away from the inside out from the need to catch Hannibal, if only to save his friends the pain.

Months later, the day finally came.

A girl had been hacked into pieces along the river, her lungs cut out with the usual precision and the remains arranged like a smiley face on the river bank. Will touched the blood soaked shirt and caught a glimpse into Hannibal's mind.

It was enough, and one trip to Hannibal's taped and locked up old house and the Business Card Roll-a-dex therein gave him the name of the next victim.

It took a week, and more stealth than Will thought the FBI had in its entire body of agents, but on a dark November evening, Will caught up to him. He'd never forget the look of astonishment, and then the pride on Hannibal's face when Will stepped out of the car with the punctured gas tank.

Hannibal didn't run, and neither did Will. They'd come too far for that. He stood on the road with Will and asked, "How is this going to happen, Will?"

It seemed even prison couldn't wither Hannibal Lecter; he had somehow managed to find his suits and overcoat, which Will was almost positive had been in an evidence storage. Will suddenly doubted that the lab tech who'd left abruptly the month before was actually in Cuba for an extended family reunion.

"Don't suppose you'd turn yourself in if I asked you nicely?", Will replied as something of a joke. The facts were ricocheting around in his head; the rude, he only killed _the rude_. How shockingly… Hannibal the idea was, but Will knew he wouldn't give up. He could easily kill Will right there on that road; they were too close, Will wouldn't be able to get his gun out in time even if he wanted to, but the question was worth it to see Hannibal's smile.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Will. I'm sorry to hear about you and Alana, but I did warn you it was not meant to be.", Hannibal said. "How are you coping? Are you all right?"

"I hadn't planned for a session right now, Hannibal." He hadn't been surprised though.

"No time like the present, Will. I've recently learned that when an opportunity presents itself, you must grab onto it. I had not fully appreciated such opportunities before.", Hannibal responded, then added, "Aside from the fact that I have truly missed our discussions during my absence, the longer you keep me here talking, the longer dear Uncle Jack has to disrupt my next move. I assume he knows I'm planning to leave the country?"

He did. He'd been working with all international travelling agencies to make sure that Hannibal Lecter couldn't get on a plane, train or boat out of United States territory. Will just shook his head and let Jack have his delusions. "He has. Are you… okay with that?", Will asked.

Hannibal laughed, and then sat on the hood of the would-be victim's car. He turned to look at Will and said, "Will, if Jack was capable of catching me, I would not be sitting here talking to you."

The pieces slid together. "But I can catch you, so you're not worried about Jack. As long as I'm here with you, I won't be telling Jack how to find you. I'm the only one who can catch you, aren't I, Dr. Lecter?"

Hannibal's proud smirk was the only reply given or needed. He motioned for Will to take a seat next to him on the hood. Will didn't even hesitate.

As far as the FBI was aware, they'd had a confrontation; Hannibal subdued him and took off. Will had the bruises around his wrists and on his shoulder to prove it, courtesy of Winston, a tree and the squirrel he took issue with the night before. Jack was enraged but hid it fairly well.

In reality, Will and Hannibal sat on the hood of that car until the sun came up, and then Will said he needed to get into the car to check a text message.

The next thing he knew, a chloroformed, monogramed handkerchief was over his mouth and he was out. When he woke up, he was tucked into the car seat, eight hundred dollars richer and alone on a quiet road in a dead car with over forty missed calls and unread texts from Jack, Alana and Bev.

A week later, Will caught Hannibal Lecter after he killed his fifteenth victim in that particular burst. Jack made the arrest.

Once inside, Hannibal repeatedly demanded to speak to Will, offering information on the murders he knew about but with the condition that he would only give it to Will. Jack shut it down before the offer was even made to Will, Hannibal went to trial and received consecutive life sentences, and Will retired, feeling more tired and sad than he had in years.

When the sentencing was handed down and Hannibal was transferred to Chilton's hospital for temporary holding, Will locked his doors and unplugged his phone. Every time he turned on the television, Freddie Lounds was either outside his house doing a story on him or cameras were chasing Alana or Jack, fishing for information on Will, Hannibal or both.

After a while, the television was unplugged too.

It took weeks for the combined power of Alana and Bev to get him out of his house, but with the promise of Chinese food and cake, Will got dressed, then was made to undress twice by Bev, who claimed he looked like a TA from the 70s, and climbed into Alana's car beside Bev for dinner with them, Price, Zeller and several of Alana's colleagues. He found out later from Bev that the entire evening was planned so he would be able to meet Molly.

Molly Bishop was everything Will had hoped to find and everything he told himself he'd never deserve. She was brilliant, beautiful, funny, and so wonderfully normal that Will could have cried. He realized Alana's plan of setting he and Molly up within five minutes of being introduced. Alana wouldn't say either way, but Bev proved that night that her enthusiasm as a wingwoman far outweighed her skill.

He appreciated the effort she put in to make things as casual for them as possible but it didn't matter. Will and Molly hit it off, and after that night, they dated for two months before Molly introduced him to her son, Willy. Despite Will's misgivings, Willy liked him, and Molly liked him, and they both liked Winston and his dogs. For the first time since Hannibal was locked up, Will was happy.

So, naturally, it couldn't last.

They'd been married for a year when the Tooth Fairy killings started. Will could still remember Bev's speech as his best woman and Alana's dress as the maid of honour when he saw the first news report. As Freddie Lounds spoke at length about the killings, Will knew it wouldn't be long before Jack came calling.

Alana had the same thought, and Bev sent him a text one day when he was preparing for his classes saying that Alana had had a screaming match with Jack in the middle of the morgue. They'd argued for twenty minutes after he mentioned talking to Will about coming back to the field to help catch the guy the press had dubbed the Tooth Fairy.

Alana won, and Price and Zeller were afraid to speak to her for the next week.

Alana's wrath bought Will and Molly a month of happiness but it didn't last. Jack showed up at their house one night after Willy was in bed and asked Will to come back to the field. Molly's immediate response was no, and she asked Jack to leave. Will stayed silent as Jack argued his case to Molly, thinking it over, and that should have told him that he was asking for trouble.

That night, he and Molly had their first argument, and it left Will with a lot to think about. He was happy. He had a wife and a stepson who loved him and whom he loved. He was teaching classes and was sleeping like a normal person. He hadn't had a nightmare in ten months, not since Hannibal sent he and Molly a bottle of French champagne and paid for a second honeymoon, a week in Italy at a timeshare villa for he, Molly and Willy.

It'd been anonymous and when Molly asked if he knew who the gift was from, Will said it was most likely from his mother's sister, the aunt he hadn't spoken to in the years since his mother's death.

He didn't say that this was the same aunt whose obituary picture he had in a memory box upstairs under their bed.

He was happy. The field brought him more misery than anything else, and there were no others like Alana, Bev or Hannibal for him to find. There was nothing for him there now, so why would he even consider going back?

But, Jack hadn't played fair. He'd brought pictures of the crime scenes and it had been enough. Something in him that had lain dormant in the aftermath of the event named Hannibal Lecter was woken up, and Will knew it wouldn't be put to sleep again. He called Jack that night and told him to call him when the next crime scene was found.

He and Molly never talked about it. She knew what the field had done to him, she knew how furious Alana had been with Jack when things went badly and Will was almost broken. She never mentioned Hannibal, even when he released a memoire from prison with Will in a starring role and with Molly given honourable mention.

When the news hit that Jack had sought Will's help to catch the Tooth Fairy (Thanks, Tattle Crime), a signed copy of the memoire was delivered to Will and Molly. Molly never saw it; Will hid it in the locked bottom drawer of the desk in his study. She'd found the wrapping in the recycling but didn't say a word about it.

Willy was less silent. He asked Will about it one night when Molly was at work; about the FBI, the field, Hannibal. Will's step-parenting skills may've been lackluster at best but at least he was honest.

He said that the field was brutal, that the FBI and Jack used him as a tool they didn't particularly care if they broke, and Hannibal had all but destroyed him. Willy knew about the memoire and he had an educated guess about who paid for their surprise second honeymoon, much to Will's surprise. He'd always known that kids saw more than adults thought they did, but only then did he truly understand what that meant.

Willy then asked why Hannibal had done those things for he and Molly if he'd tried to hurt Will so badly. Will debated being honest about that, and in the end, he'd only said that Hannibal was doing what he thought was best for Will because he counted Will as his friend.

Willy was a bright kid. He took after his mom, but his eyes were a little more open than Molly's. He didn't know the full story but he knew there were some things he shouldn't ask. As far as Will knew, that conversation had stayed between them.

It took six months to catch the Tooth Fairy, but four months in, things got worse. He and Molly had distanced themselves from each other with Willy in the middle, bodies were piling up, and then Abel Gideon escaped. Jack worried for Chilton, but Will knew different. Gideon wouldn't run the risk of Hannibal getting loose by going after Chilton, or worse getting trapped with Hannibal. He'd go for an easier target.

Will knew in his heart of hearts that sooner or later, Gideon would go after Alana. Days slipped by and things just kept getting worse as the leads dried up, and then Hannibal sent Jack an invitation for Will.

He'd help them catch the Tooth Fairy and Gideon before Alana and a multitude of others died, but he'd only speak to Will. Alana and Jack managed to agree that that was a non-option, and Molly remained silent on the matter. Will was on the fence – he wanted to stop the Tooth Fairy and protect Alana, but the idea of seeing Hannibal behind bars with Chilton leaning over his shoulder made something twist unpleasantly in his chest.

It was Willy, of all people, who tilted the scales. He thought Alana hung the moon and the stars, and even if it meant speaking to the man who almost broke his stepdad, Willy knew Will could handle it. He had faith that Will could do anything if it meant protecting his mom, him and Alana, and he was right. Will just wished he had Willy's confidence in himself. As it turned out, the invitation, and the confidence, was unnecessary.

After Gideon's escape and his sundering with Molly, Will had taken to sleeping on Alana's couch. He'd just barely got there the first time Gideon tried to kill her, Will told Alana one evening when they were eating dinner in front of the television. He wouldn't allow it to be up to chance again; this time, he'd be there waiting when Gideon made his move.

About a month after the escape, they'd settled in for an early night and Will was half asleep on the couch with the television on mute in front of him. The sound of broken glass woke him up in the middle of the night, and the smell of smoke got him off the couch and up the stairs to wake Alana. He knew what fire at both doors meant, but he ran upstairs anyway.

Alana was scared and startled when Will woke her up, but as the smoke filled the house, between the two of them, they managed to find the way out. Fire filled the living room and the kitchen, and when they escaped onto the front lawn, Will felt Alana grab his arm and heard a gun safety click off.

Abel Gideon was there with them, and he had a gun trained on Alana. Will saw his hand tense momentarily and pulled his own gun, aiming it at Gideon.

He was just a second too late, and that second would haunt him for a long time to come.

Gideon fired, and Will's gun went off a moment later. Will's shot went into Gideon's head a moment before Alana cried out and Will watched her fall from the impact of Gideon's shot. Gideon dropped a moment after Alana did and Will followed her, trying to catch her before she hit the ground.

His head was spinning but Will applied pressure to the wound on Alana's chest, trying to ignore the blood seeping through her housecoat and sticking to his fingers. Will ignored when her chest spasmed and kept the pressure on it with one hand and trying to dial his phone to get help with the other.

To the end, Alana was the brave one. If anyone said otherwise, Will would not be held responsible.

Alana knew there was nothing he could do. She knew she had seconds left, and she took hold of his wrists. She tried to smile, tried to reassure him that it was going to be okay even as she was bleeding out.

Then, the light went out of her eyes and her hands went still on Will's wrists.

The next thing he remembered, he was lying in a hospital bed with Molly beside him, Willy sobbing into his hands, and Jack waiting at the foot of his bed like a spectre, waiting to tell him the news.

Gideon was dead.

So was Alana. He could hear Bev sobbing in the hallway outside of the hospital room.

Afterward, Will told Jack point blank that if Freddie Lounds said one bad word about Alana, there would be all manner of hell to pay and Will wouldn't take prisoners. Jack heeded his warning and headed the media off at the pass by getting a gag order from a Federal judge.

Hours later and Will was cleared, both by Jack of killing Alana and of losing his mind by Dr. DuMaurier, who was a consultant in the hospital and had been brought in by Jack. He signed himself out and Will, Molly and Willy went home that night.

Will walked into his house almost twelve hours after Alana died.

Willy locked himself in his room, Winston following him with his ears down and his tail lifeless, while Molly and Will sat in the living room. The dogs surrounded them in comfort and silence, and they sat curled up together on the couch for hours, not speaking.

Will felt the grief slam into his heart as Molly rested her head on his shoulder but he allowed himself to hope that, maybe, this would be the end of his nightmare. He'd never go back go back to the field. He'd failed Alana. Clearly, he didn't belong in the FBI.

He let himself think that, just maybe, he and Molly and Willy could be happy again.

Winston's barking, and then pained yelping, woke him up hours later from the worst sleep of his life. He was alone on the couch and caught a look at the man he knew was the Tooth Fairy just a second before the knife tore into his stomach. The pain exploded in a line of fire that stretched up his chest and wrenched a scream from him, but Will kicked out and escaped the second stab. He rolled from the couch onto the floor and limped to his feet, getting to the living room door.

He could hear Winston whimpering and Willy talking to him, and knew he had to keep the Tooth Fairy away from Willy and Molly. With Winston wounded, the other dogs created a living buffer of teeth between Will and the serial killer, but when he tried to get to Will by slashing his way through the dogs, Will saw red.

He lunged at the Tooth Fairy, over powering him and sending them both to the floor. They struggled, each trying to get control of the knife between them. Will's hands were streaming blood but he held on. His strength failed him for one moment, and in that moment, the killer rolled them both over. Will fought while the dogs bit and clawed at the killer, but then Will felt the knife graze his throat.

He could hear the door being broken down and Willy yelling, 'He's in there! He's got my dad!' at someone. Will guessed they'd called the police and he was relieved; at least Molly and Willy would get out all right.

The Tooth Fairy forced the knife closer between them, nearer to Will, and Will's hands were so full with fending that off that he couldn't get to his side arm. Then, a gunshot went off.

Will felt the impact when the bullet hit the Tooth Fairy. He shuddered, and then died, putting his full weight on top of the already injured empath. Will struggled to move and then Jack was there, telling him that it would be alright. Jack helped him move the body and then brought the paramedics in.

Behind Jack, in the living room doorway, he saw Molly, white as a ghost with his spare gun in her hands. He didn't even know she knew where his spare gun was hidden in the bedroom. Her arms went down to her sides and Bev gently took the gun from her fingers

Something wet touched his hand and Will glanced down from the stretcher he'd been moved to to see Winston. He patted his head, and then pointed to where Willy was sitting.

"Look out for them while I'm gone, all right, guys?", he said to the dogs. Marcy, the Border collie who'd claimed Molly as her human the day she met her, nudged Winston, letting him lean against her to get the weight off of his injured legs.

"We'll be fine, Will.", Molly said to him, her voice shaking slightly where she stood. Winston lifted his left front paw, the knife wound obvious through the tourniquet fashioned from a table cloth wrapped around it, and whimpered. Willy hurried to Winston, grabbing Will's hand and squeezing while kneeling down to comfort the injured dog.

"I'll take care of Winston and the others, Will. Don't worry, we'll all be fine.", Willy promised.

"I know you will. Be sure to help your mom out while I'm away, will you?". Will asked, smiling painfully.

"I can do that.", Willy answered. "Get better soon, okay?"

"As soon as I can." Jack gave the order to have Will moved to the ambulance and another order for a vet to come in and look after Winston and the dogs.

They put Will in the same room he'd been in less than twenty four hours before. The head nurse joked that they should reserve that room for him, and Will could just chuckle through the pain. He knew it was bad when the nurses started making jokes but he stayed quiet.

A few hours after, Molly came to the hospital. She told him that Bev was at the house with Willy and the dogs, along with an armed guard. Then, she said that she and Willy were going to Minnesota to stay with her parents. She was sorry to leave when he was wounded, but she didn't feel safe there anymore and Willy's wellbeing came above anything else.

As it happened, Will agreed and asked that she call Bev when she and Willy got there, just so he knew they were still safe. Molly agreed and kissed his forehead, then told him that Jack had volunteered to take the dogs. It wasn't ideal but any port in a storm, he figured.

Will didn't blame her for leaving, the further she was away from him, the safer she and Willy were, but he was wounded, not blind. He could read the writing on the wall and could feel it coming off of Molly in waves as she stood in his hospital room.

She was divorcing him. He expected he'd be getting the paperwork in the mail a week or so after he was released. He was also sure that Willy didn't know; he'd have put up a fight and Molly would have been considerably more upset than she was when she said they were going to Minnesota.

After Molly left, Will slept the sleep of the dead. He was out for twenty straight hours and when he came back to the world of the living, Jack was waiting for him.

He'd driven Molly and Willy to the airport, he said, and Winston was expected to be released from the animal hospital that afternoon. He would be driving out with Bella to pick him up. Apparently, Bella enjoyed having the dogs in the house, as hectic as they were. They gave her something to focus on other than the cases her husband worked and the cancer. Jack was certain he'd be getting a puppy in the near future, and while he wasn't overly taken with the idea, he liked seeing Bella happy. Will was happy that someone's marriage was working out.

Days later, he was still in the hospital, and the memories of the past few years made Will sigh in the present day.

Molly was gone; Willy had called his hospital room phone and he'd been choking back tears while Will could hear Molly arguing with someone in the background. It seemed everyone knew about the divorce now, except Will officially.

Alana was gone, and there wasn't a reconciliation in the world that could bring her back.

Hannibal had been gone for years by then, and his absence still hurt like a fresh wound.

There was no Winston, no Bev, and no lab techs to keep his mind busy. No Alana to make him laugh. No Hannibal to make him try to smile. No Molly and Willy to give him a reason to keep trying to laugh and smile and live. For the first time in years, Will Graham felt utterly alone.

He closed his eyes against the early evening light and slid from memories into sleep, remembering fly fishing with Bev and biking around Florence with Willy and Molly as he drifted off.

It was dark in the room when Will opened his eyes again. He felt it immediately. The air felt different and his mind was screaming at him. He was not alone in that room any longer.

Eyes were watching him, and a voice in his head that sounded like Alana but spoke like Abigail asked him, 'Are you really surprised?'

He really wasn't, but he closed his eyes and let out a sigh, letting sleep take him. He didn't know if he'd wake again. He wasn't sure if he cared. He decided he'd worry about it later.

When he woke up a second time, four nurses, two guards and a surgeon had been killed and Jack was at the foot of his bed, working himself into a fury. Dr. DuMaurier was standing by his bed in silence, and then spoke to Will quietly, telling him the details while Jack screamed at someone over his cell phone.

Hannibal Lecter had killed three guards and escaped prison. Chilton was in an uproar, apparently, but Dr. DuMaurier wasn't overly concerned.

Hannibal had broken into the hospital through an open back door during a momentary power outage, killed the nurses, the guards and a surgeon who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He had sat by Will's bedside throughout the entire night, watching him while he slept, and had escaped before dawn. No one knew who had left the back door open.

"Hannibal left another present for you, Will.", DuMaurier told him, gesturing to the foot of the bed. On the moving tray, there was a still chilled bottle of Champagne, as well as a cooler that Will knew contained the hearts of the nurses, guards and surgeon.

"He must have been busy.", Will commented. Dr. DuMaurier smirked slightly.

"He always was overly ambitious. Almost single-minded, I'd say. I'm surprised you slept through it.", she replied.

So was Will, come to think of it. He was, as a rule, a light sleeper, and he should have had nightmares after the week he'd had thus far, but he'd been out like a light. He took stock of himself and he noted that his mouth felt dry and his head was spinning. He wasn't sure how but he'd bet he'd been sedated, just as an extra measure of insurance that he'd stay asleep until Hannibal left.

"Always hedging your bets, aren't you, Dr. Lecter?", Will muttered, going silent as Jack turned to him.

Jack was talking about witness protection programs and protective custody. He said Bev and the dogs had been located and moved to a secure location, that he'd re-join them soon. Molly and Willy were safe in Minnesota, but he had task forces out there on the lookout for them.

Will heard enough; he stopped listening in favour of considering the cooler and champagne. He caught sight of Dr. DuMaurier and noticed the spots of mud stained into her blouse cuff, mud that could have come from opening a back door during a rain storm.

Lightning cracked outside the rain soaked window and he thought no more of it.

As Jack made plans to catch Hannibal, both Will and the good Dr. DuMaurier stayed quiet. Neither was really surprised by Hannibal's appearance in the hospital. For a moment, Will wondered why Jack was.

Hannibal killed a dozen people, at least, to turn into dinner and to help Will realize his potential. He'd put in hours of work helping Will, shaping him, influencing him, and ultimately turning him into someone unrecognizable to himself. Both DuMaurier and Will knew he'd never leave Will alone for long; neither would he risk all his work being undone by time and outside circumstances.

He'd be back. Hannibal wouldn't leave him alone for long.

And Will couldn't have been happier.

**AN: This somehow ended with hints of Will embracing his dark side, and Hannibal being a creepy bastard we all love to sometimes hate. **

**Thanks for reading, lovelies! I hope all is well for you. :) **

**Much love,  
Oracle.**


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